


His Fandom

by Marmosette



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Eurus's violin, Gen, Holmes's needs an S after the apostrophe, International Fanworks Day 2018, Music, Mycroft's fandom, Sherlock Plays the Violin, Sherlock's Violin, Violinist Sherlock
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-15
Updated: 2018-02-15
Packaged: 2019-03-19 04:13:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,018
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13696632
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Marmosette/pseuds/Marmosette
Summary: AO3's International Fanworks Day 2018 raised the question of my fandom's fandom. I don't know enough about football to write about Greg's (Arsenal), so that left Mycroft. I can't imagine him geeking about it, or maybe even saying it outloud to anyone but Greg, and even that's a pretty big "maybe". But I think this is pretty accurate.





	His Fandom

Mycroft Holmes had little time for trivialities. He was the central clearinghouse, the still point, the centre of the web, the British Government in portable Fun Size. He was a commodity that was always in demand, whether it be regurgitating facts or analysing data. As such, he still needed to eat and sleep, and sometimes this was forgotten or resented by those who had recourse to him. He was fully capable of informing his “users” of this sad but undeniable fact, but the advisability of doing so varied; the more necessary he was, the less advisable it was. This was simple math. Should junior Ministers wish his advice on a matter, he could easily choose not to be available by way of an early lunch, a late dinner, or an “early-morning conference call” for which he needed to prepare (by sleeping). Those at the height of government, in contrast, were more likely to find him amenable to urgent queries on short notice at any time of the day or night.

This meant the Ice Man only rarely hoped to fit anything nonessential into his schedule. Needs were met, wants were too often denied. Over the years, many of his interests had sloughed off like the skin of the reptile Mrs Hudson claimed he was. He retained a fondness for _noir_ film, but that was on shaky ground after Sherlock’s last prank. His enjoyment of good food and drink was curtailed by the onset of middle age, and the return of every pound he had thought he had dodged in his youth returning like a multitude of prodigal sons complete with their own built-in fatted calves. Fattened calves made for ill-fitting socks and suits, which was less an interest than a survival trait, as his appearance could be used to cow or impress the weak, ameliorate delicate negotiations, or camouflage his role.

The one remaining interest to which he found himself clinging was easily disguised. Sherlock knew he was monitored, after all. He was a bit more understanding these days, although the justification was on much shakier ground. There was an unspoken compromise currently. Mycroft could get by without seeing him, as his drug use was much more rare. Sherlock’s fame and higher profile made him accept that the use of a single code word on a monitored channel was a worthwhile precaution, and so the cameras were removed from 221B and a single microphone remained.

And this was the key to Mycroft’s one remaining and indulged personal pleasure: music. Specifically, Sherlock’s. He still wasn’t completely gracious, but there were times Mycroft was allowed to hope that he might someday become so. Mycroft might have to wait until he was the one immediate family member left alive, but if Sherlock would consent to playing for their parents, then Mycroft would quietly retain his hope.

He had no illusions, though. He was still, at this point, suffered. His presence was endured. He was allowed. Sherlock would never admit any suspicions he had that Mycroft might listen to his practice or composing, and Mycroft would never have to admit to edited recordings that may or may not exist in a file buried on a hard drive swamped in financial trivia. So long as he listened to them in private and never mentioned them, they could remain. It cost Sherlock nothing in pride or time, and was still precious enough for Mycroft to keep off the battlefield of their personal war.

So days like today were miraculous. He suspected strongly that the thought itself was erroneous from the start: he could not qualify it as a type that could be described in any comparison, as a singular, unique event did not define a type. A dot, a single data point, did not determine a line. And this was a dot. A blip of data. For all the planning and preparing and all the clearances waived and manipulated, the study and monitoring ahead of time, for all the anticipation that had burned in him, he knew that the moment, when it came, would be less than fleeting. It was less than ephemeral. It was the ghost of a butterfly, which might not even choose to flap its wings at all, much less soar.

It didn’t matter the setting. Sherlock would never play on a stage of any type, in any case. That might have been what made his playing transcendent: it was private. It wasn’t a negotiated compromise between his desire and the whims of any audience. Cement walls, thick glass, hard chairs and a chill that settled into his bones were nothing to Mycroft. The fact that his presence was barely tolerated, seen as an indulgence, his desire to be present disguised as a requirement of the security involved, even something to be pitied—none of this would intrude. The fear and aura of nightmare that the place had gained in his mind was a category of thought and emotion he had learned to stifle and repress decades ago. That was little more than a reflex, now, despite the vivid memories he would forever retain.

But no, none of this mattered. He had suffered through many a mediocre performance in his parents’ presence and at their demand. If they could, this once, gain him one single memory of musical genius unleashed and lost in its own joy, he would forever forgive the travesties he’d endured and had yet to endure. There had been no promise that this would come to pass even once. Eurus might deign to communicate with Sherlock via bow and violin, but who could translate notes into a promise? His parents insisted, Sherlock allowed, Mycroft arranged, and Eurus…would do as she would. 

When she stood, walked to the window, bow in hand, shook back her hair, and drew sound from her strings, she _spoke_. It wasn’t a language in which Mycroft would ever be fluent. He could never speak it. But he had learned to follow it, listening to Sherlock. He wasn’t actively invited, but he didn’t even care about that anymore. And now she, who had first taught Sherlock, was drawing him forth again. Against her, his playing was plain and sturdy. Hers was fire, shocking and burning, fluttering into life around them, intangible and temporary. She was inaccessible. She didn’t care at all about her audience.

Sherlock, though…

Sherlock cared.

Of course he did. He always had. His care was why they were here. He cared about his past, about his friends, about his clients. They were here because Sherlock had cared enough to save his sister, and still continued to care enough to keep reaching her. He cared what she thought and felt, he cared about how she saw him and what she could teach him of himself. Sherlock had never _not cared_ , he had simply chosen to focus on other things. Now he was focused on caring, and if he could only express it through horse hair and steel-wrapped gut, then that was how he would do it, but express it he would. And his care would be there, sturdy and supportive, allowing her to burn brightly and keeping her fires fed. 

His playing, here, was not the background to his thoughts. He wasn’t processing anything not in and of this moment. He was fully present in order to understand her present. His music was reaching out, holding her, giving her what she had never felt before. He was repaying a debt owed by an unknowable multitude. Only Mycroft could ever begin to quantify the actual good his sister had done over the years when he had presented her with problems beyond the mortal ability to address, and that was a form of calculus of which he was capable, but in which he was, currently, supremely uninterested. Right now, Mycroft was wholly devoted to absorbing _this_ , this moment, his siblings loving each other in audible form. Sherlock’s music seeming to ask and rephrase and propose, he left the stating and soaring and transformation to her. Eurus’s music was marvellous.

Sherlock’s, however, was love. There was no other word. He loved his sister, and he was telling her that. He was showing her that. He was making her feel that, and Eurus was learning what it meant. His sister, who found emotions baffling, was learning a new one. She might never be able to return it in any form the rest of the species could recognise, but she was exploring it, led by her little brother. Mycroft had tried to understand her, had attempted to reach her via things she seemed to understand: the intellect, the science, numbers, concepts, the abstract, the distilled, the defined and definable. He had accepted her emotional unawareness, but he had been unable to inspire any. But Sherlock could. Now that he was learning where Eurus ended and he began, his instinctive lessons in the language they shared, the language they originated were taking effect. The vocabulary had been proposed and now it was being explored.

None of this was what was actually happening. Mycroft allowed his brain to store its data however it pleased, as it would all be useful later. Right now was about his senses. Sherlock’s posture as he played, how he moved. He moved very little, because the movements he made meant so much. His touch was making emotion out of silence and sound, and that was more than enough. The scent of the resin on his bow, clear and musty and dark, childhood and mystery, magic and music overlapping in a blend to bridge time. His mother’s soap, his father’s cologne, familiar and dear and still infuriating, love and impatience in a comfortable box. The sensation of sound against his skin, his sleeves and collar, the legs of his trousers all vibrating lightly with the strokes of the bows on the strings. Every breath he took changed his skin, the tension of his clothing, making him a part of what he was hearing. 

And then came the unlooked for moment when his mother took his hand. He turned and smiled briefly, acknowledging the gesture with rote appreciation before he could begin to process it. It was a moment he had not expected, which was vanishingly rare in itself. The memory of her towering fury, her disappointment and frustration, her absolute hatred of what he had done for the best, the burden he had accepted, all of it had smashed flat any expectations of his life-giver’s love. She had _made_ him, and would never understand him. He was one of the many obstacles in her life that were unfathomable and without use. His father’s sadness was a quiet, decisive background and if he sought relief from his mother’s onslaught, no matter where he turned he met his father’s sadness. 

Was this forgiveness? Forgiveness was unattainable: a short thought that would outlast time. It was immutable fact. So what was this?

The answer came as the music explained it, defined it. Exemplified it. His younger sister, so much brighter in every sense but one; his baby brother, dear beyond price. His shattered, battered family brought together for a conversation only understood by two of them. The riches in the rest of his life, his influence and control, his power and responsibility, all of it was outweighed by the sheer bloody importance of the people in this room. And none of them would be there without Sherlock. It was his cleverness, his obsessions, his friends, his stubbornness, his caring that brought them and held them. His gift had never been words, for all he talked. Sherlock’s gift was feeling. Intuition. All the rest was dust without it. Now he had it back, after all the years, and he was developing his own vocabulary for showing it in these lessons with his sister—and she was _his_. Mycroft was related to her, but she belonged to Sherlock and always had. Together they could soar, swept up on the music of their instruments.

This was Mycroft’s pleasure, and this was its greatest expression, sung without words on his brother’s violin.


End file.
